


Firsts

by smirnoffmule



Category: The Authority
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-14
Updated: 2006-09-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 15:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirnoffmule/pseuds/smirnoffmule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coming together of a lot of little Apollo POV bits that belong to an abandoned fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts

Apollo's first memory of the Midnighter is of the smell of honey and leather. Bendix had brought his new team together for the first time, and they stood, shoulder to shoulder, all eyes on him; the one familiar thing in this raw, new world. Apollo's eyes are firmly fixed on Bendix, but his attention is roving the room, and beyond. His skin still feels raw and tender from the ops, and he can feel his new powers thundering in his chest like the ocean, but for the first time, the power doesn't feel too big for him. He can ride out the surges of heat, at least, and the feeling that he might lose control and blast himself into a million red wet pieces, just for the hell of it, is passing.

Yeah, he's starting to grow into it, like Bendix said he would, and he's hungry for sensation, like he's never seen or smelt or tasted anything in his life before, and the honey-rich smell in his nostrils is about as sensational as it gets. Outwardly, Midnighter stands like a rock, looking as though bullets would bounce off him, but Apollo, with his hearing cranked to the max, can hear through the façade. He can hear the movement of leather as Midnighter breaths, his mask creaking as a muscle in his jaw ticks. He can even hear the Midnighter's pulse thrumming at his throat, thready but determined, and it's so amazing that it's all Apollo can do to stop himself bursting into grins, to stop himself laughing, shouting, to stop himself gathering the Midnighter up in his arms and bursting skywards with him until the sky runs out. It's an effort to keep his feet on the ground, let alone his eyes on Bendix. Bendix is watching him, now, scowling slightly; perhaps he can see the corners of Apollo's mouth quirking. Apollo tries to straighten his face and look suitably sombre. With an intuitiveness older than his memories, he knows that Bendix already doesn't like him, although he doesn't yet have the emotional range for the knowledge to sting.

His own feelings towards Bendix, and towards most of the rest of the world, are benignly neutral. Life at this point is a series of flickering moments, and few thoughts make enough impact on his blank-slate of a brain to actually stay there. A few things have started to become constants, however, and he clings to them. Midnighter's honey scent and his fragile heartbeat stay, as does the warm, cozy desire in Apollo's stomach, although at first he doesn't quite know what it is, or what to do with it. The light in his head and the sexual desire seem linked somehow, and Apollo has the feeling that if he loses one, he'll lose the other, and so he treasures his private honey-warm thoughts, and uses them every night, along with the remembered rhythm of Midnighter's heart, to beat himself off to sleep.

Sleeping isn't easy. White light keeps roaring in his ears. Bendix controls his doses of sunlight, and Apollo often feels deficient and anaemic; restless and exhausted both at once. When he isn't fantasizing about sex, he fantasizes about basking, about lolling in the sun, about sprawling out cat-like and falling asleep there forever. He always moves without thinking to the brightest part of every room. Midnighter is a spot of shadow on his thoughts; comforting and cool when he feels too hot, still and grounded when he feels like he could just fly apart.

They still, at this point, have not exchanged a word. The rest of the team seem to be waking up from their sleep and re-discovering the world in much the same way Apollo is, but Midnighter never seems to change. Apollo learns that when he smiles, people smile back, and, like a kid with a new trick, he smiles until his jaw aches. Midnighter, of course, never smiles back, but Apollo doesn't take this personally. Midnighter never smiles at anyone. Sometimes, his shoulders are hunched just a little bit in his coat, as though he is in pain. Apollo, wanting to do something nice for him, keeps his distance. It's all Midnighter ever seems to want.

Alone in his quarters, too charged up to sleep, Apollo spends the only time to himself he ever has in his busy new life of training and drilling and schedules. With no frame of reference beyond himself and his immediate surroundings, he has an active fantasy life, and most of his fantasies are about having slow sex in a series of ever more complex positions. Odd stray memories that seem to belong to someone else do resonate from time to time, but he finds them unsettling, and so does his best to ignore him. The smell of cigarettes is unaccountably comforting. The noise of trains makes him sleepy. His fantasies grow ever more elaborate, although the object of them remains largely faceless, and even genderless. He uses Midnighter's rhythms, but the reality of such an encounter seems so remote from his reality, it hardly occurs to him to think of it. Midnighter doesn't notice him, and Apollo only notices Midnighter when he can keep his head out the clouds. He comes to embrace the thought of him, like an old friend, whenever he can concentrate long enough to keep him in mind. Really, Apollo is lonely, but, having no recollection of ever having been anything else, he hasn't noticed yet.

Sometimes, he wonders how things might have been different for him – for them – if it hadn't been Midnighter standing next to him in the line-up on the first day that his brain had suddenly got curious about its surroundings. He wonders sometimes if he'd even been gay before, or if his blank slate of a brain had turned for him then and there, just because Midnighter – a male – happened to be the first other creature he noticed that was as gloriously alive as he was. He suggested this to Midnighter, not because he seriously thought it might be true, but because he thought Midnighter would really get a kick out of the idea that he'd single-handedly turned Apollo's head.

Midnighter wasn't quite as amused as Apollo had anticipated however. He laughed once, shortly, and then was silent for a while: his brooding silence, rather than his comfortable silence. Apollo had learned to tell the two apart.

"What?" Apollo said eventually. "Is this not a good thing? Am I not bigging up your ego?"

"No, you're saying it could have been anyone. Another guy. A girl. A dog. Lucky me. Lucky you."

"That's not what I meant. I just meant you're special. Not like it could have been any old guy."

"That's sweet, but you're back-peddling. Don't bullshit a bullshitter."

"You're such a bullshitter that you just translate everything I say into bullshit."

"I don't know. I'd rather think I was inherently more special to you than about half the human race, rather than just some weird maternal imprint, like when cats raise ducklings."

"So far from what I meant, and you know it. Besides, it's not true. It's all you. I remember now. Because I never used to think of you at all. Like that. But I did used to think about you. You were my rock, long before you were my lover. Stalker was just… what guys do. Y'know."

"I have some experience in that field, yes."

"Thing is, Mid…"

"Oh, what?"

"There was someone stood on the other side of me, too. And I'm damned if I can remember who."


End file.
